Take over a conversation

A resolved conversation can be reopened when follow-up is necessary. Manual reopening assigns it to you. A new visitor message reopens it automatically under AI handling across the widget, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Slack.

When a visitor asks for a person, or when your workspace automated message allowance runs out, the conversation appears under Needs agent immediately. If automated credits are exhausted, the visitor receives a notice that your team has received their message, and teammates can take over and reply directly in live chat for free without requiring message credits. Whether the AI keeps answering while the visitor waits depends on the Keep AI answering after handoff setting described below. When the visitor shares their email, phone number, or name while waiting, their details update your inbox in real time, and the AI acknowledges their information without replaying the handoff announcement. Releasing the conversation returns new messages to AI handling once message credits are available.

Keep AI answering after handoff

This switch decides what the AI does between the moment a visitor asks for a person and the moment a teammate takes the conversation. Find it under Widget → Appearance → Chat, in Escalation & 1-click channels. Changes save automatically; wait for the saved state before leaving the page.

• Off (the default for new agents): the AI stops replying as soon as a person is requested. The visitor can still write, and every message goes to your inbox with the usual alerts, but no AI answer, saved answer, or guided flow step is sent. The widget tells the visitor a teammate will reply there. Automations you set up (for example a Slack alert or follow-up email when a person is requested) and cash-on-delivery order confirmations keep working. The AI starts answering again only after someone selects Return to AI or Release conversation in the inbox, or after the conversation is resolved and the visitor writes again.
• On: the AI keeps answering follow-up questions while the visitor waits, and stops once a teammate is assigned.

Agents created before this setting existed have it turned On, so they keep working exactly as before until you change it.

A person counts as requested when the visitor asks for one, picks a guided flow option that hands off to your team, or when the assistant itself tells the visitor it is passing the conversation to your team. When your workspace runs out of message credits, conversations are also listed under Needs agent so your team can reply, but that alone does not pause the AI: it answers again as soon as credits are available.

The switch takes effect straight away, including for conversations already waiting under Needs agent. Before turning it off, check that list and select Return to AI on any request nobody on your team will answer, so those visitors are not left waiting.

The setting applies to the website widget, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Slack, and Discord. Email conversations are not affected: they keep their own Pause AI and Resume AI control. Once a teammate is assigned, the AI never answers, whichever way the switch is set.

Messages a visitor sends while the AI is paused do not use message credits.

Team members need conversations.view to see chats and conversations.reply to take over and reply.

If another teammate resolves or reassigns the conversation while you are typing, Fetchply keeps your draft but disables sending. Reopen the conversation or ask the new assignee to release it; your text is restored when you can reply again.

A reply you send is saved to the conversation immediately and then delivered to the customer's channel, so it carries a short delivery label until the channel confirms it. If the conversation is resolved, or your reply access is removed, in the moment between sending and delivery, the reply is held rather than delivered and its label says so. See Delivery labels on a sent reply.

Opening an unread conversation marks its visible messages as read immediately. New messages that arrive while that conversation remains open are also treated as read. Fetchply keeps the timeline in sent order, including messages recovered after a brief reconnect.

The timeline also shows date separators, resolution and reopen events, automated actions, and storefront pages the customer viewed. The header badge shows whether AI is replying or stopped. For WhatsApp, it also shows the remaining 24-hour free-form reply window.

When the agent recommended products or looked up an order, the timeline shows the same cards the customer saw. Product recommendations appear as a row of cards with the image, price, any sale or stock label, and available options; drag the row or use its arrows to see the rest, and select See details on a card to open the full product view with its description. Order lookups appear as an order card with the status, payment and fulfillment state, totals, and any tracking details. If a card looks empty or plain, refresh the conversation; the card needs the page to finish loading.

Handoff alerts

The inbox has a bell at the top of the conversation list that watches for customers waiting on a person. It turns amber and shows how many conversations are under Needs agent, and the moment a new one arrives it swings and plays a short chime so you notice without staring at the screen.

Select the bell to open its panel. Show who is waiting switches the list to Needs agent so you go straight to the customers who need you, and Alert sound turns the chime on or off.

A few things worth knowing:

• The chime plays even when the inbox is in a background tab or another window. As long as Alert sound is on and the inbox page is still open in your browser, you hear it. The browser tab title also shows a count of waiting customers, and your usual notifications (the bell menu, email digests, Slack, and mobile push) still reach you. A page you have fully closed cannot play sound.
• The first chime needs one click on the page. Browsers refuse to play sound until you have interacted with a page, so after opening the inbox in a brand new tab, click anywhere once. Turning Alert sound off and on again also counts, and plays the chime so you can check your volume.
• Turning the sound off is per browser, on the computer you are using. A shared support machine does not inherit a teammate's choice, and muting the handoff chime does not mute the notification bell in the top bar. The bell still turns amber and still counts, so a silenced desk keeps the visual alert.
• Each escalation chimes once, even if you already have that conversation open, and even if several teammates have the inbox open at the same time (each of them hears it once).
• Reconnecting does not replay old alerts. If your connection drops and the inbox shows Syncing, catching up afterwards updates the list quietly rather than ringing for handoffs that happened while you were away.
• If you have asked your system to reduce motion, the bell stops moving but keeps its colour, count, and sound.

Private notes

Select the Note tab above the reply box to leave an internal note on the conversation. The box turns amber while you write so you always know the text is internal, and saved notes appear in the timeline on an amber card marked Private note with the teammate's name. Teammates viewing the conversation see new notes instantly.

Notes are strictly internal:

• The customer never receives a note in chat, by email, or on any connected channel.
• Notes are left out of emailed replies, chat transcripts, CSV exports, and the developer API.
• The AI never reads notes, so a note cannot influence automated answers.

You can add notes to open and resolved conversations alike, which makes them useful for recording the outcome of finished work, flagging VIP customers, or handing context to the next teammate. Notes do not mark a conversation unread and do not change its position in the inbox.

Mention a teammate

Type @ in the Note tab and pick a teammate from the list that appears; keep typing after the @ to narrow it. Only teammates with reply access to this agent can be mentioned. When the note is saved, the mentioned teammate:

• joins the conversation, so it appears under their participant filters and future customer messages count as unread for them,
• gets a notification (in the bell menu, and in Slack if your workspace has notifications connected) with a link straight to the conversation,
• sees their name highlighted on the note card, as does everyone else on the team.

Mentions come from the final text: if you delete the @name before saving, nobody is notified. Mentioning someone in a reply is not supported, because replies go to the customer.

Working a conversation together

A conversation has one owner, but the whole team can help:

• Join a conversation. When a chat is owned by a teammate, the reply box offers Join conversation instead of locking you out. Joining lets you reply alongside the owner; ownership does not move, and the owner is not interrupted.
• Transfer a conversation. To hand the chat over entirely, open the actions menu at the right end of the reply box and choose Transfer to teammate, or pick the new owner under Status and owner in the details panel. The new owner is notified and the conversation moves to them.
• Mention a teammate in a private note when you want their eyes on it without changing who owns it.

Magic Reply

Magic Reply is an AI co-pilot for the reply box. Open AI Tools at the right end of the composer tabs to:

• Draft a reply from the conversation history and your agent's trained content. The draft lands in the reply box for you to review, edit, and send; nothing goes to the customer until you press Send.
• Improve your draft: make it friendlier, make it shorter, fix spelling and grammar, or translate it into the language the customer is writing in.

When the latest message in an open conversation is from the customer and your reply box is empty, a Suggest a reply chip appears above the composer; one click drafts an answer for you.

Magic Reply uses the same AI model you picked for the agent in its AI settings, so drafts sound like the answers your customers already get. If your plan no longer includes that model, Magic Reply uses the free default model, just like automated answers do. Each run uses that model's message credits, the same way an automated AI answer does. Drafts are written in your voice as a teammate and never refer to themselves as an AI.

Magic Reply works the same way in the Fetchply mobile app, under AI writing tools in the reply box's add menu.

Magic Reply tips

• Drafts are grounded in your trained content. If the agent has little training material about the question, the draft will say what it would need to check; review it before sending.
• You can draft even when the agent or a teammate answered last. The draft then follows up on the customer's latest message instead of repeating the last answer.
• Drafts never take actions. They can't transfer the chat, place or change an order, or contact anyone; do those yourself before sending.
• Draft a reply replaces whatever is in the reply box. Copy anything you want to keep first.
• Magic Reply is limited to a few runs per minute per teammate to protect your message credits. If you hit the limit, wait a moment and try again.
• If you switch to another conversation while a draft is being written, that draft is cancelled so it can never land in the wrong chat.

Customer details and email conversations

Use Conversation details to add or update the customer's name, email, and phone number. You can add searchable tags, include teammates as participants, or change the owner. These changes stay with the conversation.

You can also attach one or more shared labels from the Labels section at the top of Conversation details. Select Add label to apply an existing label, or type a new name and choose Create "name" to add and apply it in one step. Labels appear on the conversation row and in the left-side inbox filters. Use them for team workflows such as Follow up, VIP, or Refund review.

To stop an abusive or unwanted visitor, open the conversation header's More actions menu and choose Block visitor. This uses the same blocked visitor list as Widget → AI rules, so the block also appears there. A blocked visitor's previous conversation stays available for review. Choose Unblock visitor from the same menu whenever they should be allowed to contact the agent again.

For a complete overview of how email works as a support channel, see Email replies.

The actions menu next to Resolve in the conversation header holds the email options for the conversation:

• Email chat transcript sends the full conversation history to the customer. Confirm the customer email, adjust the suggested subject if needed, and send.
• Set email subject chooses the subject used whenever a reply is emailed to this customer, including replies sent while they are offline. This replaces the subject box that used to sit above the message box, so the subject stays consistent across every emailed reply.

Select the plus button in the inbox list to start a conversation from a customer email address. For an existing widget conversation, Fetchply sends an agent reply in chat while the customer is online. If the customer is offline and an email is available, the reply is sent by email. Every emailed reply includes a timeline of the recent conversation history, showing who said what and when, so the customer has the context that led to it. To keep the email readable, it shows only the last 10 messages, and an unusually long single message is shortened. If no email is available, choose either to add one or send in chat only.

Email delivery supports text replies and file attachments. Files you attach in the reply box are sent along with the email, up to 5 files and 10 MB in total per reply; if the files are larger than that, send them in chat instead or remove some. Voice recordings cannot be emailed. A chat-only reply remains in the conversation and is not emailed.

When a customer answers an emailed reply from their own inbox, their answer is added back to the same conversation and appears as a new customer message. From then on, your follow-up replies are delivered into that same email thread in the customer's mailbox (with a "Re:" subject) instead of starting a new email conversation. If the conversation was resolved, it reopens automatically, and you are notified the same way as for any new message. To keep conversations safe, Fetchply only accepts replies sent from the customer email saved on the conversation, and automatic responses such as out-of-office messages are ignored. Only the customer's newest message is added; quoted history and email signatures are removed so the conversation stays readable.

Files the customer attaches to their email reply appear in the conversation alongside their message. Common file types are supported: images, PDF, Word documents, plain text, and audio or video clips. Up to 5 files of at most 10 MB each are kept per reply; unsupported or oversized files are left out while the message itself still arrives. Inline images from email signatures are ignored on purpose.

Troubleshooting

Release conversation does not change the chat

If Fetchply cannot release the conversation, an error appears below the message box. Retry the action once. If a teammate changed the conversation at the same time, refresh the inbox to load its latest state before trying again.

Reassignment says the teammate is no longer eligible

The teammate's access changed after the list loaded. Retry from Conversation details and select a teammate who is still shown. If nobody is available, leave the conversation unassigned or contact the workspace owner.

How does live agent escalation work?

Whenever a visitor asks for human support, live help, or to speak with a representative, the AI immediately tags the conversation as Needs agent, alerts your team, and provides any configured direct channels (such as WhatsApp or email). The conversation remains under Needs agent until a teammate takes it over, returns it to AI, or resolves it.

The visitor still receives AI replies after requesting a person

Keep AI answering after handoff is turned on for this agent, which is the setting agents created before it existed start with. Turn it off under Widget → Appearance → Chat and wait for it to save to stop automated replies from the moment a person is requested. To stop them for one conversation only, select Take over chat or assign an eligible teammate. If the conversation was released, it is back under AI handling; take it over again before replying as a person.

The AI stopped answering after a visitor asked for a person

This is expected when Keep AI answering after handoff is off: the conversation waits for a teammate under Needs agent, and the visitor's messages arrive in your inbox without an automated reply. Open the conversation and select Take over chat to answer, or Return to AI to let the AI continue. If nobody on your team will answer, return it to AI so the visitor is not left waiting.

Return to AI is not shown

Return to AI appears on conversations waiting under Needs agent for teammates with reply access. After you take over a conversation, use Return to AI in the actions at the right end of the reply box, or Release conversation in the Assignee menu, instead. If Fetchply says the conversation changed before the action completed, a teammate took it over at the same moment, and it stays with them. Refresh the inbox to load its latest state.

Resolve or reopen reports that the conversation changed

Another teammate completed an action first. Fetchply keeps the latest server state and refreshes the active list. Review the new state before trying again; repeated clicks do not create duplicate reopen events.

I can read but cannot reply

You may have view-only access, the conversation may be resolved, or it may belong to another teammate. Ask the workspace owner for reply access or ask the current assignee to release or reassign the conversation. Your unsent draft remains available while the conversation stays selected.

A reply fails after I press Send

If the reply was refused before it was accepted, Fetchply keeps the message in the reply box and shows the reason below it. Retry once after confirming your internet connection. If the conversation was closed or reassigned, refresh the inbox and follow the action shown.

If the reply was accepted, it stays in the conversation and its own label tells you where it got to, so you never have to guess whether the customer received it. See Delivery labels on a sent reply.

Delivery labels on a sent reply

An accepted reply is saved to the conversation straight away and then delivered to the customer's channel. Until the channel confirms it, the reply carries a short label:

Sending normally clears within a few seconds. It can last longer if the channel is briefly unavailable, and Fetchply keeps trying on its own for a while before settling on a final label.

Not sent is safe to send again: nothing reached the customer, so there is no risk of them seeing it twice.

Not delivered appears on WhatsApp replies, including automatic replies from your agent, the next time the conversation is opened or refreshed. Select it to read WhatsApp's reason, for example that the WhatsApp Business account needs a payment method. To send it again, write the reply again once the cause is fixed. See Replies that were not delivered.

Partly sent and Delivery unconfirmed are not retried automatically, and Fetchply does not offer a one-tap resend for them. Part of the message may already be with the customer, so sending the whole thing again would show it twice. Open the conversation on the customer's channel to see what arrived, then send only the missing part. For a reply with a voice clip or file, the label tells you which piece is unresolved.

You do not need to keep the dashboard open. Delivery continues after you close the tab, and the label is up to date the next time you open the conversation.

A reply still shows Sending long after I sent it

The customer's channel is not confirming delivery yet. Leave it: Fetchply keeps trying and will settle on a final label on its own. Do not paste the same message in again, because the first attempt may still arrive and the customer would see it twice. If it has not settled after several minutes, check the conversation on the customer's channel, and tell the workspace owner the time you sent it if it still looks stuck.

I pressed Send twice by accident

Only one message is created. Fetchply recognises the repeat and treats it as the same reply, so a double tap, an impatient second press, or a retry after a dropped connection cannot send the customer two copies.

A voice reply cannot be recorded or sent

Allow microphone access in your browser and select Try again in the recording bar. Voice replies are available only for Widget, WhatsApp, and Instagram conversations. For WhatsApp, also confirm the 24-hour reply window is open. If a channel is disconnected, reconnect it before recording again.

If Fetchply reports that the recording could not be read, the clip was cut short before it finished saving. This usually happens when the browser tab is closed, the page is refreshed, or the microphone is disconnected while recording. Record the message again and wait for the play button and waveform to appear before sending.

The handoff bell does not make a sound

Work through these in order:

1. Open the bell's panel and confirm Alert sound is on.
2. Click anywhere on the page once. Browsers block audio until a page has been interacted with, so a freshly opened tab stays silent until you do.
3. Make sure the inbox page is still open in your browser. The chime plays from a background tab, but not once the page is closed.
4. Check your computer's volume and that your browser tab is not muted. Browsers let you mute a single tab, and a muted tab overrides the setting here.

If the bell still turns amber and counts correctly but never makes a noise, keep working from the badge and the Needs agent view; no customer request is missed, only the sound is.

The bell rings but I cannot see who needs help

Select the bell and choose Show who is waiting, which switches the list to Needs agent. If the list then looks empty, a teammate assigned or resolved that conversation in the seconds after it arrived, which is normal on a busy team.

The bell count does not match what I expect

The count is every conversation currently waiting for a person across your whole inbox, not only the ones loaded on screen, so it can be higher than what you can see in the list without scrolling. It drops as conversations are assigned or resolved, including by teammates. A count that looks stuck usually means live updates are reconnecting: check whether the list header shows Syncing, then refresh the page.

The bell chimed twice for one customer

A customer can ask for a person again after their conversation was resolved, and that is treated as a new request, so it alerts again. Repeated alerts for a conversation nobody has picked up are not sent; the bell stays amber with its count instead.

The inbox shows Syncing

Syncing can appear briefly while live updates reconnect. Conversations continue to refresh automatically during this time. If it remains visible, keep the dashboard tab open, confirm your internet connection, and refresh the page. You can continue reading and replying while Fetchply reconnects.

Quick Replies do not open when I type slash

Place the cursor in an empty reply box, then type /. Use the arrow keys to move, Enter to choose, and Escape to close. If there are no saved replies, create one from the Quick Replies menu first.

A teammate I want to mention is not in the @ list

The mention list only shows teammates who have reply access to this agent. Ask the workspace owner to grant them reply access on the Team page; they appear in the list right away.

A mentioned teammate says they were not notified

Mentions notify through the notification bell (and Slack when connected). Ask the teammate to check that Mentions are not muted in their notification preferences, and confirm the @name was still in the note when it was saved: a deleted mention does not notify. Mentioning yourself never creates a notification.

I joined a conversation but cannot reply

Joining requires reply access, and the conversation must still be open. If it was resolved after you opened it, reopen it first. If the reply box still says the conversation is owned by another teammate, refresh the page; your join may not have completed.

A note could not be saved

If a note fails, it shows Not saved with a Retry action and your text is kept. Retry once after confirming your connection. Notes only need view access to read and reply access to write, so if saving is refused, ask the workspace owner about your reply access.

Magic Reply says the workspace is out of message credits

Magic Reply uses the same message credits as automated AI answers. When the workspace runs out, drafting is paused until the plan renews or more credits are added, while normal replies you write yourself keep working.

Magic Reply says it is unavailable right now

The AI model your agent uses did not answer in time or is temporarily down. Wait a moment and try again. Magic Reply does not quietly switch to a different model, so the draft always comes from the model you chose. If it keeps failing, write the reply yourself; sending is not affected.

Magic Reply says there is no customer message yet

Draft a reply and Translate to customer's language need at least one message from the customer to work from. Nothing is charged when this happens. Once the customer writes, try again.

Magic Reply asks you to keep the reply shorter

The AI tools improve replies up to 4,000 characters. Shorten the text or split it into two replies, then run the tool again.

A Magic Reply draft is in the wrong language

The draft follows the language of the customer's latest message. If the customer mixed languages, write or edit the draft yourself, or use Translate to customer's language after typing your reply.

The customer is offline and email cannot be sent

Confirm that the email address in Conversation details is correct. If Fetchply reports that email delivery is unavailable, choose Send in chat only to keep the reply in the conversation, then ask the workspace owner to check email delivery before retrying.

A customer's email reply does not appear in the conversation

Check that the reply was sent from the same email address saved in Conversation details; replies from any other address are not added, so nobody can write into a conversation from a forwarded email. Automatic responses, such as out-of-office notices, are also ignored on purpose. If the address matches and the reply still does not appear after a few minutes, ask the workspace owner to confirm that incoming email replies are set up for your workspace.

A file from a customer's email reply is missing

The customer's message arrives even when a file cannot be kept. A file is left out when it is larger than 10 MB, when its type is not supported (for example installers or archives), or when more than 5 files were attached to one email. Very large emails may not be accepted at all; ask the customer to send files under the limits or share a download link instead. Inline signature images are always ignored.

A WhatsApp reply is blocked

The customer's 24-hour free-form reply window has closed. Use an approved WhatsApp template or wait for the customer to send a new message. The countdown in the conversation header updates automatically.

If Fetchply says the customer has not messaged your WhatsApp number yet, the conversation holds no incoming WhatsApp message, so only an approved template can start it. This can also happen with a conversation that was started from your side. Send a template, and normal replies become available as soon as the customer answers.

The transcript email cannot be sent

Add a valid customer email, make sure the conversation contains at least one message, and retry. You can edit the suggested subject before sending. An empty conversation cannot produce a transcript.

An emailed reply to an offline customer does not show the whole conversation

This is expected for long conversations. To keep the email readable and reliable to send, an emailed reply includes only the last 10 messages, and an unusually long single message is shortened with a trailing ellipsis. The customer still receives your full reply and enough recent context to follow it. If you need to send the complete history, use Email chat transcript from the actions menu instead.